By Braden Weinel
Frederick County Public Schools is turning to a new form of counseling that draws on trauma research to best reach the mental health needs of students.
FCPS hired two trauma therapists to work with students starting in the 2022-2023 school year.
School staff members can refer a student to meet with a trauma therapist during the school day after getting permission from the student’s parent or guardian.
Lynn Davis, coordinator of Mental Health Services for FCPS, said that a teacher or other staff member may be alerted of trauma that a student has faced or is facing from previous knowledge, in conjunction with difficulties in mood, attendance, academic decline and/or other behaviors.
All schools in Frederick County have guidance counselors that deal with generalized counseling matters such as bullying and coping skills. Davis said the FCPS staff started to notice that generalized counseling wasn’t impacting students’ mental health in the way they had hoped.
“When a child’s been exposed to multiple traumatic stressors,...
By Aden Sievert
Frederick County Parks and Recreation Department uses nature and outdoor activities as prescriptions to help relieve stress, combat obesity, and improve overall well-being.
In 2014, former Frederick County recreation manager and current chief of recreation services in Baltimore County, Amy Vagnoni, was at the forefront of the Docs in the Park initiative, this is an opportunity for doctors to prescribe nature for clients. Frederick County and Frederick City Parks and Recreation partnered with Frederick County Health Department to create “Docs in the Park”.
The initiative began to combat some of Frederick's more complicated challenges such as nature deficit disorder, obesity and physical inactivity. Their mission was to create a healthier Frederick County.
Docs in the Park works hand in hand with Park Rx America. Park Rx prescribes people nature to combat chronic disease. Based out of Washington D.C. it has around 350 parks mapped around Washington and nearly 300 in Frederick that are rated so people can visit their prescribed park....
By Hannah Armstrong
The Frederick City Police has created a three-person mobile mental health unit to help citizens facing mental health crises.
The unit, called the crisis car, contains a co-responder crisis team intended to help deescalate situations where individuals may be facing mental health crises.
The crisis car team launched in July of 2021 as a pilot program to respond to mental health emergencies, said Samantha Long, Frederick City Police’s public information officer.
“Our chief of police at FPD, Chief Lando, decided we needed an approach to addressing mental health due to an increased amount of calls involving mental health and substance abuse,” Long said.
The crisis car was created in partnership with Frederick’s Division of Fire and Rescue Services as well as Shepherd Pratt, which is a large nonprofit that specializes in mental health issues.
The crisis car contains a crisis response team made up of three individuals: a Frederick police officer, a paramedic from Frederick Division of Fire and Rescue Services, and a...
By: Rachel Kucharski
The budget for the Critical Incident Stress Management team increases over the past two years due to the death of three firefighters.
Over this time the firefighters have suffered a line-of-duty death, a firefighter suicide, and active fire death due to COVID. Because of these incidents, it was crucial that the budget needed to grow to renew the focus and funding. Thomas Coe said, “Fortunately with the support of Frederick County Government leaders these programs have become a priority and we are actively working to build on our existing programs to support the need in Fire/Rescue as well as support our other public safety allied agencies.”
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, Critical Incident Stress Management is “the selection and implementation of the most appropriate crisis intervention tactics to best respond to the needs of the situation at hand.” The reason for the CISM team is to offer peer-based support to EMS, firefighters, law enforcement, dispatch centers, and other...
By Elizabeth Connelly
A walk-in, 24-hour crisis stabilization center is being built in Frederick County to connect individuals with mental health and substance use issues to the services they need
The center's purpose is to connect individuals with mental health and substance use issues to services and also ease the burden on the county’s first responders and hospital by diverting these individuals away from the emergency room because statistically 20% of emergency room visits are mental or behavioral health related according to a county news release.
The center will be operated by the Mental Health Association under the direction of the County Health Department. There will be licensed clinical and medical providers, peer support specialists and navigators, and masters and bachelors level mental health professionals.
As a part of the federal omnibus bill Frederick County will receive $1.8 million to be put toward local projects in Frederick, Including $699,000 will be put toward Frederick County’s new center.
“The Local Behavioral Health Authority (housed in...
